Jocks(1986)

SHORT VERSION:
L.A. College defeats Dallas Tech for the Western Conference Championship, with the Kid and Jeff getting the decisive victory in a doubles match against the Kid’s foes Chris and Tony. The Kid also gets romantically involved with Nicole, who was initially one of the Dallas Tech supporters.

LONG VERSION:
The night before the Western Conference Championship finals between L.A. College and their rivals Dallas Tech, Dallas players Chris (Tom Shadyac) and Tony (Christopher Murphy) – recognizing how much winning potential the L.A. College team has, especially the Kid (Scott Strader) – decide that they need to do something to guarantee victory for their school. With help from their friend Julie (Katherine Kelly Lang), they place a bet on the game for Dallas Tech to win and put it in the Kid’s name, and Julie then comes up to the Kid outside of a bar where he and his team are hanging out and hands him the receipt for the bet. Chris and Tony then approach him and warn him that they will show a copy of that receipt to the officials and get him in serious trouble (since it is illegal for players to bet on the games) if he doesn’t ensure that Dallas Tech wins tomorrow, and they add that they will share half of the winnings with him if he cooperates.

Moments after they leave, Nicole (Mariska Hargitay) comes up to the Kid to talk to him about this blackmailing scheme (Chris and Tony originally approached her to help them out, but she flatly refused, both because of how unscrupulous it is and primarily because of her attraction to the Kid), and she ends up taking him back to her hotel room to discuss it further. While he is there, he vents his frustrations over how he doesn’t want to let down his coach, Chip (Richard Roundtree), or his teammates, but has serious doubts that they will be able to win it all, and she winds up acting upon her attraction to him by having sex with him. Meanwhile, as the rest of the team returns to their hotel and tries to sneak back to their rooms since they are out past curfew, they are caught by Chip and their college’s athletic director, Bettlebom (R.G. Armstrong), and the latter demands to see them first thing in the morning.

The Kid returns to the team shortly afterwards and finds out from them that Bettlebom had caught them. The Kid suggests they fix the issue with Bettlebom by catching him at his own game, so that way, he can’t take any action against them. To that end, the team hires three prostitutes and take them to Bettlebom’s hotel room door, but before the girls go in, the guys give them a camera so they can take pictures of themselves with him. Once the prostitutes have accomplished this, the team has the pictures developed at a one-hour all-day photo place. When they report for their match with Dallas Tech the next morning, Bettlebom approaches them and tells Chip that he is fired and that the team will default the match since they are in no condition to play, and he also threatens the players with expulsion. However, the guys present Bettlebom with the photos, and Chip tells him that he will hand over the negatives after the match.

The Kid deliberately performs poorly, and the rest of the team doesn’t do well, either, causing Dallas Tech to win the first four singles matches. When the Kid sees Nicole leaving out of disgust over the whole episode, he stops her and tells her that he has decided to not cooperate with Chris and Tony any longer, and after kissing her, he rallies his teammates to get their heads in the game. They go on to win the remaining two singles matches, leaving just the three doubles matches. Before the players can begin the first doubles game, Jeff (Perry Lang) comes up to the Kid and Chip and shows that he has randomly found the gambling receipt in the Kid’s name, and the Kid simply tells Chip that he won’t give him any lame excuses other than the bet happened and it was hogwash, and Chip crumples up the paper and throws it away. L.A. College wins the first two doubles matches, and in the final match, the Kid and Jeff defeat Chris and Tony to win the championship, with the Kid scoring the winning point.  

At the celebration banquet that night, Chip hands Bettlebom the negatives as promised, and Bettlebom tells him that he is still fired, but he wants him to finish out the week. President White (Christopher Lee) – who came to Las Vegas to watch the finals and see that Bettlebom made sure the players were in tip-top condition for it – then talks to Bettlebom and tells him that he wants to have a chat with him in private, so Bettlebom suggests that they go to his room to do that. However, he ends up having to convince White to have the conversation elsewhere when he enters the room first and finds that Chip and the players made additional enlarged copies of the pictures and placed them all over his bed. Meanwhile, the team (and Nicole) celebrates their victory with a night of drinking, gambling, and dancing.